Origins of Western Herbalism

Hippocrates may be known today as the father of medicine, but for centuries medieval Europe followed the teaching of Galen, a 2nd-century physician, who wrote extensively about the body's four "humors", blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile and classified herbs by their essential qualities: as hot or cold, dry or damp. These theories were later expanded by 7th-century Arab physicians, such as Avicenna, and today Galenical theories continue to dominate Unanimedicine, practiced in the Muslim world and India. Galen's descriptions of herbs as for example, "hot in the third degree" or "cold in the second" were still being used well into the 18th century.

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

Herbs in Papyri:

Surviving Egyptian papyri dating back to about 1700 b.c. record that many common herbs, such as garlic and juniper, have been used medicinally for about 4,000 years. In the days of Rameses III, hemp was used for eye problems just as it may be prescribed for glaucoma today, while poppy extracts were used to quiet cying children.

The Greek Contribution:

By the time of Hipporcrates(468-377 b.c.), European herbal tradition had already absorbed ideas from Assyria and India, with Eastern herbs such as basil and ginger among the most highly prized, and the complex theory of humors and essential body fluids had begun to be formulated. Hipporcrates categorized all foods and herbs by fundamental qualities-hot, cold, dry, or damp. Good health was maintained by keeping qualities in balance, as well as taking plenty of exercise and frest air. Pedanius Dioscorides wrote his classic textDe Materia Medica in about a.d. 60, and this remained the standard textbook for 1,500 years. Dioscorides was reputed to have been either the physician to Anthony and Cleopatra or an army surgeon during the reign of the Emperor Nero. Many of the actions Dioscorides decribes are familiar today: parsley as a diuretic, fennel to promote milk flow, and white horehound mixed with honey as an expectorant.

The Greek Model

{Early Greeks saw the world as composed of four element: earth, air, fire and water. These elements were related to the seasons, to four fundamental qualities, to four bodily fluids or humors, and to four temperaments. In almost all individuals, one humor was thought to dominate, affecting both perosnality and the likely health problems that would be suffered.}

Roman Remedies:

The Greek theories fo medicine reached Rome about 100 b.c. as time passed, they became more mechanistic, presenting a view of the body as a machine to be actively repaired, rather than following the Hipporcratic dictum of allowing most diseases to cure themselves. Medicine became a lucrative business with complex, highly priced herbal remedies. Opposing this practice was Claudius Galenus(a.d. 131-199), who was born in Peramon in Asia Minor and was court physician to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Galen reworked many of the old Hippocratic ideas and formalized the theories of humors. His books soon became the standard medicial texts not only of Romans, but also of later Arab and medieval physicians, and this theories still survive in Unani medicine today.

Islamic Influences:

With the fall of Rome in the 5th century, the center of Classical learning shifted East and the study of Galenical medicine was focused in Constantinople and Persia. Galenism was adopted with enthusiasm by the Arabs and merged with both folk beliefs and surviving Egyptian learning. It was this mixture of herbal ideas, practice, and traditions that was reimported into Europe with the invading Arab armies. Probably the most important work of the time was the Kitab al-Qanun, orCanon of Medicine, by Avicenna. This was based firmly on Galenical principles and by the 12th century had been translated into Latin and brought back to the West to become one of the leading textbooks in Western medical schools.

Eastern Spices

The Arabs were great traders and introduced many herbs and spices from the East, such as nutmeg, cloves, saffron, and senna, to the materia medica of Dioscorides and Galen.

A Science of Life

The term AYURVEDA comes from two Indian words: ayur, or life, and veda, or knowledge. Ayurvedic medicine is thus described as a "knowledge of how to live," emphasizing that good health is the responsibility of the individual. In Ayurvedic medicine, illness is seen in terms of imbalance, with herbs and dietary controls used to restore equilibrium. The earliest Ayurvedic texts date from about 2500 b.c. with successive invaders adding new herbal traditions: the Persians in 500 b.c.; the Moghuls in the 14th century, bringing the medicine of Galen and Avicenna (known as Unani); Ayurvedic schools in 1833 but luckily did not obliterate the ancient learning altogether. Tibetan medicine has much in common with Ayurveda but can be vastly more complicated, having 15 subdivisions for the humors and placing strong emphasis on the effect of past lives-karma-on present health.

The Way of the Ayurveda

As in Ancient Greek and traditional Chinese medicine, the Ayurvedic model links the microcosm of the individual with the cosmos. At the heart of the system are three primal forces: ,prana, the breath of life; agni the spirit of light or fire; and soma a manifestation of harmony, cohesiveness, and love. There are also 5 elements comprising all matter; earth, water, fire, air, and ether(a nebulous nothingness that fills all space and was also known to the Ancient Greeks). The five universal elements are converted by agni, the digestive fire, into three humors, which influence individual health and temperament and are sometimes called wasted products of digestion. If digestion were perfect there would be no humoral imbalance, but because it is not, imbalance and ill health can follow. Air and ether yeild vata(wind), fire produces the humor pitta (fire or bile), while earth and water combine to give kapha (phlegm). The dominant humor is seen as controlling the character of the individual: a vate-type roughly conforms to Galens's melancholic peronality, pitta matches the choleric type, and a kapha person is reminiscent of the phlegmatic. Food, drink, sensual gratification, light, fresh air, and spiritual activities are used to "feed" the digestive fire and porduce the correct mix of humors.

Chinese Herbal Medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine is an ancient system of healing that can be traced back to about 2500 b.c. The texts produced at that time are still studied and followed by practitioners, and while much has been added to the basic philosophy, very little has been taken out. In Chinese medicine, illness is seen as a sign of disharmony within the whole person, so the task of the traditoinal Chinese practitioner is always to restore harmony and balance, thus enabling the body's natural healing mechanisms to work more efficiently. Herbs are central to treatement, aided by other therapies, such as acupuncture or specialist massage. In the past few years, Chinese herbal traditions have become more familiar in the West and are now used by many qualified practitioners.

THE PRINCIPLES OF CHINESE MEDICINE

The Theory of Elements: As with early Greek philosophy, the Chinese tradition is based on a theory of elements which is used to explain every interaction beween people and their environment. These elements namely, wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, are seen to be related, with wood encouraging fire, fire resolving to earth, earth yeilding up metal, metal producing water(seen as condensation on a cold metal surface), and water giving birth to wood by encouraging the growth of vegetation. Each element has a nuber of associations, ranging from emotions and parts of body to human sound, the seasons, colors and tastes, all underpinned by a simle logic. Wood, for example, relates to spring and the color green; fire to summer; and wate to the kidneys. For good health to prevail, the elements need to be in harmony; if one element becomes too dominant, illness may result. Chinese practitioners often look for the cause of illness in a related element: weakness in the liver(wood), for example, may be due to deficiencies in the kidneys(water). A weak stomach(earth) might be caused by overexuberant wood(liver)failing to be controlled by deficient metal(lungs).

THE FIVE ELEMENTS

WOOD:
Season: Spring
Taste: Sour
Emotion: Anger
Parts of the body: Liver, Gallbladder, Tendons, Eyes.

Sour herbs, such as shan zhu yu and  wu wei zi, 
are generally astringent and used for discharges, excessive 
bleeding, sweating, or diarrhea.  Their main action is on 
the liver and gallbladder.


WOOD:
Season: Summer
Taste: Bitter
Emotion: Joy
Parts of the body: Heart, small Intestine, Tongue, 
Blood Vessels.

Bitter herbs, such as  dan shen  and  da huang, 
are generally cooling and can direct qi downward: useful 
in coughs and constipation.  Their action is focused on 
the heart and small intestine.


EARTH:
Season: Indian Summer
Taste: Sweet
Emotion: Worry
Parts of the body: Spleen, Stomach, Mouth, Muscles.

Sweet herbs, such as  gou qi zi  and  gan cao, 
are nutritious and tonifying, affecting the stomach and 
spleen.  They are used in cases of deficiency.


METAL:
Season: Fall
Taste: Pungent
Emotion: Grief
Parts of the body: Lungs, Large Intestine, Nose, Skin.

Pungent herbs, such as  bo he  and  ban xia, 
are dispering and mobilizing.  They move qi and blood and 
primarily affect the lungs and large intestine.


WATER:
Season: Winter
Taste: Salty
Emotion: Fear
Parts of the body: Kidneys, Bladder, Ears, Hair, Bones.

Salty herbs, such as seaweeds,  qing dai, and 
jin qian cao, generally reduce swellings.  
They are usually cooling, acting on kidneys and bladder.

YIN, YANG, & QI

Complementing the basic model of the five elements is the Chinese theory of opposites-"yin and yang". According to this, everything in the cosmos both contains and is balanced by its own polar opposite, yin is seen as female, dark and cold, while yang is characterized as male, light and hot. In traditional Chinese medicine, yin and yang need to be in balance to maintain health, and many ills can be attributed to a deficiency or excess of either factor. Different parts of the body are also described as predominantly yin or yang: body fluids and blood are mainly yin, for example, while qi, the vital energy, ends to be yang. Qi is regarded as flowing in a network of channels, or meridians, through the body and can be stimulated using acupuncture.

Out of the Dark Ages

After the fall of Rome, Europeon herbal traditions were not completely submerged by the ensuing Dark Ages. The "barbarians" brought with them their own herbal healing customs to add to the Roman practices that survived and, with the spread of Christianity, there was considerable exchange of both actual medicines and tried and tested remedies. Throughtout the Middle Ages, the Church played a significant role both in cultivating "physic gardens" and in introducing new herbs. With the advent of the printing press, Classical knowledge spread from the confines of the cloister to complement the folk medicine and household gerbal remedies passed through the generations.

THE GROWTH OF EUROPEAN HERBALISM

Anglo Saxon Herbals: Europe's oldest surviving herbal written in the vernacular, The Leech Book of Bald, dates from the first half of the 10th century and includes remedies sent by the Patriarch of Jerusalem to King Alfred. Numerous treatments are described for ailments caused by "flying venom" and "elfshot" thought to be responsible for a wide reange of sudden or wasting illnesses. Among the most popular herbs in Saxon times were wood betony, vervain, mugwort, plantain, and yarrow, taken in many internal remedies but more often worn as amulets to ward off the evil eye. Although medical schools spread through Europe(the most famous, at Salerno, was founded in the early 10th century and taught the Hippocratic principles of good diet, exercise, and fresh air), healing and herbalism were largely in the hands of the Church, with all monasteries growing medicinal herbs and tending the sick as part of Christian duty. Healing was as much a matter of prayer as medicine, and early herbals frequently combine religious incantations with infusions, concluding that with "God's help" the patient would be cured.

North American Traditions

The first European settlers arriving in North America brought with them the familiar healing plants from home: heartease and plantain, also known as "white man's foot" because it was soon found growing wherever the settlers penetrated. They also absorbed some Native American healing traditions, discovering new herbs, such as boneset, purple coneflower, goldenseal, and pleurisy root. Several of the American tribes also made great use of saunalike sweat houses, and the idea hot heat as a healing technique was adopted by Samuel Thomson. This melding of traditions bore fruit in the Physiomedical and Eclectic schools, which were later imported to Europe and had a lasting influence on European herbal practices.

Ritual Herbalism

Magic & Medicine: Native American herbalism was shamanistic-it centered on the activities of the medicine man, or shaman. Through the use of drums and rattles and the smoking of mixtures of tabacco or peyote, the shaman would enter a trancelike state that enabled him to "spirit-travel" and seek out the soul of the sick person in order to rescue and heal it. Today, shamans in South America still use extracts taken from a particular vine, known in Colombia as yage and in Peru and Ecuador as ayahuasca in the same way Siberian shamans were once able to "travel" by taking fly agaric toadstool or European witches to "fly" with the help of deadly nightshade, henbane, thornapple, or mandrake. The Native Americans also made ritual use of the medicine wheel and assigned animal totems to the four cardinal directions. They equated these with different personality types, spiritual energies, diseases, and plant medicine. Typically, for example, the South was symbolized by the coyote and the energies of growth and compassion, while the eagle and the powers of wisdom and enlightenment were symbols of the East.

Merging of Practices

Physiomedicalism: Before land battles with the Plains tribes decimated the indigenous popultion, the early pioneers and Native Americans shared much of their herbal lore with each other. An early enthusiast was Samuel Thomson, who founded the Physiomedical movement. Born in New Hampshire in 1769, he learned his craft as a child from Widow Benton, a "root and herb doctor" who combined Native American skills with the traditional role of "herb wife". Thomson believed that parents were responsible for both their own and their childrens health and patented "Thomson's Improved System of Botanic Practice of Medicine," a mixture of handbooks and patent remedies that swept America in the early 19th century. Thompson's principal theory was that "all disease is caused by cold," which in the bitter New England winters may well have been accurate. By the late 1830's he claimed three million followers.

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